Deadline Deals and Heritage Steals

I already touched on the Matt Holliday subject just hours before he was dealt to St. Louis for "The Future". It only took me a few hours to put my reservations about the trade aside and just go into full on "root for the new guys" mode. As a fan of the team, the obligation to root for anyone in a Cardinal uniform takes precedence over anything else. It also made me think of some of the past stars that the Cards had traded for at or near the deadline and whether or not they ended up being "rentals" or if they re-signed and stuck with the team. The Cardinals brass has said that the Holliday deal is not a rental situation and that they fully intend on re-signing him, but a lot has to happen to make that a reality.

Will Clark ended up being a rental but only because he retired. Larry Walker ended up spending one additional full season before retiring as a Cardinal himself. He eventually returned to the team as a part-time hitting instructor, and it would be nice to see him get a full-time job with the organization should he choose to go that route. Mark McGwire also came into the same situation, but everyone knows how that turned out.

I'll put all that aside for now and just hope that Matt Holliday fires his demonic agent and signs with the Cards for a reasonable amount of money. Tubby from Card Cluster sent along the Will Clark card as well as a metric ton (well, maybe not quite that much) of 2009 Topps Heritage cards.

It looks like almost every Mayo insert card pictures a player with a really awkward, forced smile.
I actually think it would be more interesting to get a baseball card of a U.S. Flag that had less than 50 stars, mostly because I'm not used to seeing anything else.

A ton of the cards were base cards from the set. I'll feature a few of the cards of players that I drafted for my fantasy teams since I am having trouble being decisive on what to talk about here.

Denard Span has been a solid contributor this year. I can't really say I've been surprised or disappointed by his season so far. He seemed to be a fairly easy draft choice since many just hadn't heard of him even after his strong rookie campaign.

Billingsley has been about as good as can be expected, though he's run into a few rough outings of late. I'm not sure how LA's starting rotation stacks up against the rest of the potential NL playoff teams this season, which could make things interesting. The batting order is certainly deadly, though.

Oh, Erik Bedard, why did I swear up and down not to draft you only to end up with you on my team anyway. Bedard always seems to rack up decent numbers, albeit usually with high pitch counts per innings pitched, but he also loves the disabled list.

I strongly dislike high strikeout power hitters who don't do a ton of other impressive things at the plate. When you weigh the good with the bad, he still ends up as one of the best first basemen in the league not named Albert Pujols, but he makes my eyes roll whenever I see him come to bat.

I didn't know a lot about Pelfrey and I know enough about him now to regret my decision on taking him.

I didn't actually draft Mark DeRosa, but I did spend a #2 waiver position selection on him. Basically, that means that I gave a significant potential future move to get him. I guess it's the fantasy equivalent of the draft picks-for-two-months-of-All-Star-guy trade. But DeRosa has been a huge contributor for the Cards since coming off the DL and I have no regrets.

Thanks again to Tubby. Check out Card Cluster when you get a chance and send some Mike Piazza cards his way.